I Need An Angel to Keep Me From Cryin'
by basset-voyager
Summary: Jo finds out something she didn't know about Anna. This is a sequel to my other short fic, "You're An Angel And I'm Gonna Cry."


Jo had expected Anna to live in some oversized McMansion in the nicer part of town, so when Anna pulled up next to a squat downtown apartment building with a rusty fire escape, she almost thought there must have been some sort of mistake.  
"Here we are," Anna said, shooting her a tight smile from the driver's seat, "Home sweet home." Jo slid out of the car and held her backpack over her head as a makeshift umbrella. April showers were coming in earnest, and there had better be some serious May flowers or it was likely Jo would never go outside again in protest. Then again, it did mean that she and Anna had been spending a lot of time inside, curled up in Jo's bed watching hours of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix or talking about what they'd do when they got to college. They'd been spending so much time together over the last few months that Dean had started leaving whiny voicemails on Jo's cellphone telling her she'd abandoned her friends for her girlfriend and reminding her that he was the reason she had a girlfriend in the first place, thank you very much. Jo was usually too busy playing the message over and over again to hear the word "girlfriend" to really feel bad about it.  
Jo knew that Anna liked real pencils more than mechanical ones, that she doodled in all of her school notebooks, that she loved soccer and anything else that gave her a chance to run, that she hated brussel sprouts but loved brocolli, that she smiled in her sleep and sighed when she came. She'd introduced Anna to Ellen a couple of weeks ago, stressing that they really liked each other and they'd always leave the door open when Anna came over to study. Ellen had smiled, muttered something about Jo always needing to rebel, and then gone back to cleaning glasses behind the counter of her bar. Still, it could have been a lot worse. Anna hadn't introduced Jo to her parents yet. She'd never even had Jo over until today.  
Anna led Jo up two flights of stairs with chipping paint ("the elevator's broken again," she murmered, her cheeks turning red) and to an apartment with a faded number 7 on the door.  
"Are your parents home?" Jo asked as Anna pushed the door open and they stepped inside. The apartment was full of mismatched furniture, and evidence of Gabriel was everywhere - discarded candy wrappers, posters advertising shows for whatever band he'd found himself fronting this week, and even a pile of Doctor Sexy DVDS littered the floor. Jo smiled to herself. She'd known he and Dean had something in common besides Latin class. Light flooded the small living room through a window on the far wall, giving the place an inviting feeling that reminded Jo of Anna's smile.  
"Actually," Anna said, "Gabriel and I live here on our own." Some of the warmth drained out of the room.  
"What?" Jo almost laughed, "Why? You've never said anything about that."  
"It's not a big deal," Anna explained, moving to sit on the arm of the couch, "Our parents - they're good people, but they're really religious and when they found out the kind of politics Gabriel was involved in they wanted to move us to another town and put us all in separate private schools. Gabe was already eighteen, though, and getting money for himself God knows how, so he just told them he'd get his own place if that meant he could stay. I think he just wanted to get away from them, really. They wanted him to be a priest. Can you imagine? Gabe, a priest?" Jo sat down next to Anna and laced their fingers together. Anna gave her an apprecitive smile.  
"Anyway, I was sort of at a tipping point with them anyway because they wouldn't let me apply to art school and I knew they'd freak out if they knew I wasn't exactly a Brad Pitt fan…so I left, too. Said, 'I'm queer as a three dollar bill' and walked out the door with a suitcase and my art supplies."  
"Seriously?" Jo asked, giggling in spite of herself.  
"Well, I may have worded it a bit better at the time…" Anna began, then playfully hit Jo on the arm when the other girl only laughed harder.  
"Shut up, I was very emotional at the time!" she yelled, but then she was giggling, too, and the two of them clung to each other as they laughed helplessly on the couch in the empty apartment. They collapsed and lay next to each other on the cushions, their arms around each other and their legs tangled together.  
"It was stupid," Anna said, wiping her eyes with one hand and keeping the other firmly in Jo's.  
"It was _amazing_," Jo told her.  
"I don't know about that, considering they haven't tried to contact me since," Anna said. Jo had no idea what to say to that, so instead she kissed Anna, reaching up to card her fingers through Anna's hair and breathing in the beautifully familiar scent of her shampoo. She thought about how lucky she was that Anna had stayed, but felt a pang of shame when she realized that in her happiness she had gone all of these months without wondering if there might be something imperfect in Anna's world.  
"I'm glad you did it," Jo murmered when she finally pulled away.  
"Me too," Anna replied, stroking Jo's cheek with her thumb and smiling that special smile.  
"Why didn't you tell me any of this before?" Jo frowned.  
"I didn't want to mess things up," Anna told her, "I thought you'd hate me for abandoning my family like that, especially because you're so close with your mom. I guess I was wrong."  
"Damn right you were wrong," Jo said, "You didn't let anybody tell you how to live your life. Dude, I love that about you," - and then, tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop it - "I love you."  
Anna stared at her, eyes still watery from laughter (or maybe not from laughter, Jo thought), and then she pulled Jo into another kiss. It was more forceful than the one before, full of relief and need and all the things they hadn't been saying to each other for the last four months. They kissed for what felt like hours, trailing their hands over each other's bodies and tangling their fingers in each other's hair.  
After a while, Anna buried her face in Jo's shoulder and they lay entwined on the tiny couch listening to the sound of their shared breathing.  
"Love you," Jo whispered, placing a kiss on Anna's bright hair.  
When Gabriel came home a couple of hours later, he found the two of them fast asleep on the couch, their limbs entwined and their faces turned towards each other.  
"Ain't they little angels," he chuckled to himself, and he let them sleep.


End file.
